4th of July in Lake Charles

For the 4th we took a family camping trip to Lake Charles, we stayed at our usual Sam Houston Jones State Park.  My sister and her beau accompanied us, and I was so glad they did....I can only take the heat for so long!
I'll let the pics do the talking.....

Our set up

Dinner....Grilled steaks, grilled corn, and baked potato's!

My 4th of July babies

My sis and her boyfriend

Cutie

Waiting for the fireworks to begin

Fireworks!

 Despite the heat and a few malfunctions on the camper, we had a good time.  Its always nice to "get a way" and spend some time with family.

Jack & Avie's Carnival

We celebrated Jackson's 5th and Avie's 3rd birthday this weekend, with a carnival party. The kids had a blast.  We had everything from hot dogs and nachos, to popcorn, peanuts, and cotton candy! They played games, had their faces painted, and exchanged tickets for prizes, and what carnival party would be complete without a photo booth!  

Happy Birthday Jack & Avie!

We are so blessed to have you two!

Love these.....

Charming 3

....And she turns 3!   But she thinks shes turning four and starting Kindergarten this year.  Shes always a year ahead of herself!  She is very much an independent girl, which leads to her strong willed personality, (she gets that from me) and she says what she thinks (she gets that from her daddy). She is so helpful and genuinely cares for others.  She still likes for me to hold her and uses the excuse that she wants to snuggle with us, so she can get out of her bed.  She tells her brother how to do his school work, and that he has his underwear on backwards.  She pays close attention to details, and wants to know about EVERYTHING!  Shes growing up to fast....I am afraid that with the second one, everything flies by, and you don't even realize it!  But she still falls asleep in my arms, and I'll take that for now.

We celebrated her "birth" day at home with family.  I cooked chicken spaghetti, with a salad and french bread, and then we had cookies and cream fondue....her favorite!  And of course she fell in love with these high heel cupcakes.

The link below is my sister interviewing Avie:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPQTd6qxzFA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Cloudy, with a chance of powder

It was one of those days....the one where the kids have a nap after five o'clock and you are dreading when they wake up, because you know its going to be a loooooong night!  That happened to us a couple weeks ago when we made the trip to Prairieville after church to visit grandma!  They slept the whole way home, and I have to admit, it was a nice, quiet, peaceful, ride home.  We arrived home and quickly threw together something for dinner....I dont quite remember what, but it was probably along the lines of cereal or something that the kids talked me into eating like a bag of chips and a plain hot dog.  Around eight o'clock, I notice that I have not seen my husband in a while....nothing unusual, he often escapes to some other place and I don't realize it until my patience has run out and I need someone to yell at.  This time I find him snoozing in his chair....envious, I grab a cup of ice cold water and douse it all over him!  I just stare at him and mumble a few choice words under my breath and continue on.  After getting them bathed and into their pj's I was completely exhausted, and they were completely rejuvenated. I demanded that they go play in their rooms....quietly, and I plopped myself down on the couch.  The next thing I remember is, my eyes pop open, I check my surroundings, do the quick sit-up, trying to figure where I am and what just happened.  Then I realize...."I just fell asleep, and my kids are still awake! I don't even hear the kids! Maybe they fell asleep too!"  I head for their rooms and realize both of their doors are closed....Great....that is not good!   I open Jacks door first....scan the room, no kids!  Then I hear their giggles, over to Avie's room, open the door.....and for a second I think that I am dreaming....about to step into to a magical forest, of dense fog, then....something grabs a hold of my lungs, and I start to cough....and then I taste it.....powder!  They have gotten into the powder!  Through the cloud of dust I finally spot them....they both freeze and look at me with a blank stare, I quickly shut the door.  Maybe they didn't see me....maybe when I open the door again,  they will be like sweet little angels playing side by side with blocks, or playing with Avie's kitchen, making pretend meals for all the stuffed animals.  I quietly crack open the door....just enough that my eye can peak in.....nope!  I'm not dreaming.  For a minute I just want to run in there like a wild beast and tackle them both down!  Of ALL things why the powder! And why in the world did I have powder in her room....in her drawer, that she can easily pull out and play with.  Did I really think that a 2 year old was going to need powder!  "Oh, I think my bottom is a little chapped today....oh I almost forgot, I have some powder in my night stand that mom left in there....let me just pat a little on!"  Why do we even have powder....its still the same bottle that I got at a baby shower, over 2 years ago!  The only thing its good for is to pat in my hair, when I haven't washed it in over a week!  But apparently I cannot part with the bottle of powder.....

Disclaimer: if the pics look a little cloudy....its not your computer or 

my camera, its just the cloud of powder surrounding the room.

Wow, I just took a look at my blog today and realized that I am REALLY behind.  I do have a good reason though.....I've realized that homeschooling takes up a lot of your time! But first I am going to back track from now back to August of 2011.  The small OCD tendency in me, will not let skip over talking about what we have been doing for the past 5 months.  I'll be quick I promise.

We ended the summer with harvesting this huge sunflower....this is about the only thing I got out of my garden....no tomatoes, and a few pumpkins and watermelons that rotted before we even got to pick them! 

 Camping trip to Lake Charles

Visiting cousins in Mississippi

                                                                    "Tea Party with 007"!

Jackson was very skeptical about this so called "tea party".  It took a lot of convincing to finally get him to participate.  I told him we needed a "good guy" to fight off the "bad guys" when they tried to get the princess.  It obviously worked!  Whenever he felt he was being dominated by the "girlyness," he simply led an attack over the "bad guys".  All went well, except for the occasional flying spit balls from blasting his gun.

Brandon and I celebrated our six year anniversary in north Louisiana.

  We drove to Shreveport and visited a few of our friends from college that we haven't seen in a while.  

And then Jack broke his elbow!

but he got a cool dinosaur cast out of it.

Then we took another trip to Lake Charles....

 This time we visited the Lake Charles Children's Museum

 The look so happy to be here!

 Painting

And on the way out we found this cute little pizza joint called
 Hippie Pizza.....with lots of books and bean bag chairs!

For Halloween we had a Princess Avie and Spiderman Jack

And we made it to Mrs. Heather's Pumpkin Patch....the "blob" was their favorite!

We celebrated Brandon's 30th!

For Thanksgiving we were actually home.....I set the table and I cooked....a little too much.

My sister and her boyfriend joined us.

Then came December....

 Jack caught these cool sunglasses at the Zachary Christmas parade!

 I celebrated my 30th here....

 And Jack and Avie got me this awesome birthday cake!
Gotta love Walmart cakes!

 Christmas morning

Family

And lastly for New Years we celebrated at Chicot State Park
with some friends.  I didn't do a good job of taking many pictures,
so I have none to post.

Well I think that sums everything up until now.....
hopefully I'll be better at updating.  
I know I say that every time, no more excuses!

Running short....

It feels like summer has flown by.....and it's been a really busy one....I guess that's why.  Then again summers would be boring if they weren't busy.  Brandon is in Germany for the week on a mission trip, and we cant wait for him to get home again.  It's been a hectic week without him!  We went to Percy Quinn for his family get together (without him) for a few days, decorated for the Back to School Bash at church, unpacking today, and getting ready to make a grooms cake for Saturday!  The kids have actually been very cooperative....I noticed that I was short and impatient with them today....as a result of exhaustion and many more things to accomplish, including unpacking from our trip and cleaning this house, which seems endless when you have two little ones.  But I shouldn't complain, because everything has fallen into place perfectly thus far, and that is to be thankful for!
I am hoping to post some pictures of our summer soon....we did lots of fun things.  Hopefully we will take a camping trip to Lake Charles when Brandon gets back and start homeschooling when we get back.  That's another thing on my list that I am trying to prepare for.  Jack is starting preschool this year, and I am so proud to be his teacher!

Well back to unpacking/cleaning.....will post pics of summer soon!

Jackson turns 4!

I can hardly believe that I've been a momma for 4 years!  

We celebrated Jackson's 4th birthday with family.  Jackson's only request was that he have Waffle House for dinner.  If that boy could choose his every meal, it would be breakfast! And of course we had to have a Toy Story cake.  He started coming down with a cold that day, he was so tired....but despite being sick, he really enjoyed his day!

Aunt Tottie and Jackson

Birthday Boy!

Yum....Waffles

Happy 4th Birthday Jackson!

I love you crazy!